Some kids have issues at Gunston, but overall families are more satisfied with Gunston than with Oakridge. Oakridge has two problems. The first is that they "cluster" kids together. If you are lucky, you get in the cluster with the gifted kids. If you are unlike with special ed kids or with ESL kids, hard for a teacher to teach when 80% of the kids in the class don't speak English, as happened to my kid. Second, the principal is totally inflexible about everything, and won't respond to even the most legitimate concerns. She's also eliminated homework, which doesn't help... Parents in the neighborhood are happier sending their kids to the countywide Montessori or ATS (if they can get in) or to Claremont Immersion (automatic for the neighborhood).

I wouldn't send my kid to Oakridge unless I knew he was going to be "gifted," so he would always be in the gifted program. Go for Drew or Claremont, then when it's time for Gunston, the kids go to either Monetessori or Spanish immersion, many of their classes are small and with their friends from those programs, schools within a school.

Anonymous wrote:My kid is having a wonderful experience at Gunston. Am surprised to hear people want to avoid it.

In my experience on this board, most of the people opining about how bad SA schools are don't even live in SA, and those who do have never sent a kid to APS.

(And before you @ me, I said *most*)

Anonymous wrote:It's strange to me to accept a school where *my* demographic scores well on tests but the *other* demographic scores very poorly. I don't want my child to internalize and normalize that sort of dichotomy. So we picked schools with small or nonexistent achievement gaps.

Which schools would those be?

Frankly, I’d prefer a school that is 30 to 40%farms rate, but I guess I’d tolerate 25%. If it goes below 20 I would think about relocating.

My kid is having a wonderful experience at Gunston. Am surprised to hear people want to avoid it.

Oakridge has a serious staff turnover problem, due to the principal. The last of our three children is almost done there, and every one of them had wonderful teachers who later accepted jobs elsewhere in APS, at about the rate of once very two years. My NA friends’ schools don’t have this problem.

I thought Oakridge was projected to be the next seriously overcrowded APS elementary even before the HQ2 announcement. Something about the availability of 3-bedroom apartments and families being priced out of SFHs. Overcrowding is the only reason I would avoid Oakridge. However, I also agree with the other poster about starting at St. Mary's if you think you want to do middle there. My 8th-grader has been on the waitlist at our parish school in N. Arlington since the end of 6th grade. Demand seems to increase and movement seems to decrease at Catholic schools during the middle school years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In case OP wasn't a troll, you may want to rethink going parochial private for middle school. APS offers really high level math and foreign language, which from what I remember when I looked a few years ago, most catholic schools in the area don't at the middle school level. You can take Algebra as a seventh grader! I think you can get to take Differential Equations or something else similarly ridiculous in highschool. You don't have opportunities like that in private school unless you go more expensive than St Mary's.

You think APS has high quality foreign language? Um, have you seen FLES?

Um, did you see that pp was referring to middle and high school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In case OP wasn't a troll, you may want to rethink going parochial private for middle school. APS offers really high level math and foreign language, which from what I remember when I looked a few years ago, most catholic schools in the area don't at the middle school level. You can take Algebra as a seventh grader! I think you can get to take Differential Equations or something else similarly ridiculous in highschool. You don't have opportunities like that in private school unless you go more expensive than St Mary's.

You think APS has high quality foreign language? Um, have you seen FLES?

she said high level, which I assume doesn't mean elementary Spanish.

Anonymous wrote:In case OP wasn't a troll, you may want to rethink going parochial private for middle school. APS offers really high level math and foreign language, which from what I remember when I looked a few years ago, most catholic schools in the area don't at the middle school level. You can take Algebra as a seventh grader! I think you can get to take Differential Equations or something else similarly ridiculous in highschool. You don't have opportunities like that in private school unless you go more expensive than St Mary's.

You think APS has high quality foreign language? Um, have you seen FLES?

In case OP wasn't a troll, you may want to rethink going parochial private for middle school. APS offers really high level math and foreign language, which from what I remember when I looked a few years ago, most catholic schools in the area don't at the middle school level. You can take Algebra as a seventh grader! I think you can get to take Differential Equations or something else similarly ridiculous in highschool. You don't have opportunities like that in private school unless you go more expensive than St Mary's.

Anonymous wrote:I would argue 25% is actually about the sweet spot that all our schools should be at. This benefits everyone and is overcome by the 75% who are not disadvantaged and the school can function quite well.

The countywide rate is a third; in south Arlington as a whole it's 50%. It's not possible to make all the schools equal and 25% farms and it's not possible to make them the county average without involving north arlington. Which is another way of saying it too is impossible.

I would argue 25% is actually about the sweet spot that all our schools should be at. This benefits everyone and is overcome by the 75% who are not disadvantaged and the school can function quite well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would send my kid to Oakridge and am planning on sending my kid to Gunston in a few years. I know lots of people who love Oakridge and I was under the impression it is one of the more highly regarded S. Arlington schools?

I know a ton of kids at Gunston and they are all good kids and love the school and their parents (and the kids) seem to feel like they are getting a good education.

I wouldn't send me kid to Catholic school despite being Catholic because a local Catholic school required my cousin to go to the Right to Life march (for school credit), requires weekly Sunday mass with a report on the homily, and she once came home crying in elementary school because she was afraid of sin. Not my up of tea.

It's not that's it's "highly regarded" it's that the farms rate there has dropped by 40 points over the last 12 years so the test scores went up and UMC families no longer avoid it. Most other SA neighborhood elementaries have farms rates above 60 percent.

That's not accurate. 3 out of 10 south Arlington elementary schools have FRL rates over 60%. 3 out of 8 neighborhood south arlington elementaries.

It's actually four of you count Drew's graded program. And don't kid yourself, Drew's going to have a farms rate north of 70 next October when Montessori is gone. Anyway, 60 isn't the key number, 40 is. Only 2 SA neighborhood elementaries aren't title I. Which is why they are the ones bursting at the seams.

Barcroft: 68
Carlin Springs: 81
Randolph: 70
Henry: 30
Drew: graded program is at least 60, probably 80.
Abingdon: 43
Oakridge: 21
Hoffman Boston: 51

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, this will blow your mind. We are zoned for a “better” school but actually chose to send our kid to a school with a
40%+ FARMS rate and lower Great Schools rating. And guess what? It’s a good school, and my child is doing well.

You specifically chose a [magnet, choice, charter] school because of its low Great schools rating and high FARMS rate? Or you chose it for another reason?

Come on. We chose it for another reason.